Case Number 18040: Small Claims Court

DEATH WARRIOR (BLU-RAY)

The Charge

Let the games begin!

The Case

The "forced to fight" film is a potent subgenre of the martial arts
film. Its premise is beautifully simple: take a martial arts master (and by
master, we generally mean someone who has mastered their craft enough to never
have to fight for themselves again) and compel him or her to fight. Sometimes
the compulsion comes from the final promise to a dying master, sometimes for
revenge, or, in the most brutally simple incarnation, the ringmaster simply
holds a friend or family member hostage. This subgenre is often combined with
the tournament subgenre, and a fighter is forced to fight other martial artists
who are similarly compelled to kill. Death Warrior is an example of this
deadly combo, and it serves as a warning to anyone who would mix MMA and
movies.

Fighter Reinero (MMA great Hector Echevarria) is forced to fight a string of
other MMA fighters because his wife has been injected with a neurotoxin. The
other fighters are in similar situations, and the entire affair has been
orchestrated so that rich folks can bet on the matchups. Naturally Reinero has
to figure out who's behind everything and stop him before too many people
(including his wife) die.

Real fights (where the object is to kill or maim the opponent) are not very
pretty things to watch. There are no high-flying kicks and spectacular combos.
More often than not the two fighters end up grappling on the ground looking like
a pair of drunks whispering "I love you man" into each other's ears. I
suspect the only reason MMA continues to grow as quickly as it does is because
for all the ugliness of the fighting (and from the brief glimpses I've seen of
MMA bouts, they're not particularly pretty), it is at least real.
Cinematic violence is almost the exact opposite. Fighters do outlandish moves
that often contradict gravity, and the camera can explore these motions in
minute detail thanks to slow motion and CGI effects. The upshot of this
dichotomy is that simply putting MMA-style violence onscreen doesn't work. The
appeal of MMA fighting is that it's real, so it can afford to be ugly. When
filmmakers create fictional MMA fighting they lose the realism, and unless they
start substituting with some of the tried-and-true cinematic effects, they risk
losing the impact of the violence. This is the exact situation Death
Warrior finds itself. I have very little doubt that all the MMA stars are
capable fighters, and I wouldn't dare get into the ring with any of them.
However, give me a camera and somebody's 90-year-old grandmother and I can make
her look like a more competent fighter than any of them through slow-mo
and editing tricks.

The problem is that while all these fighters know how to throw a punch, they
have no idea how to communicate that punch to an audience through the medium of
cinema. They're not trained stuntmen, so the fact that they can beat their
opponent senseless is actually a liability. It doesn't help that director Bill
Corcoran does everything he possibly can to not show the violence between
these guys. We get quick edits, moves only seen in silhouette, and impacts just
outside of frame. I was honestly reminded of the tricks that slasher films had
to use at the height of MPAA enforcement to avoid the dreaded X rating. Death
Warrior promises a boatload of violence between its famous stars and utterly
fails to deliver.

What it does have is gratuitous nudity and a generic nu-metalish soundtrack,
both of which are obnoxious. Watching Death Warrior made me think Russ
Meyer was in charge, telling the director he needed bare (and might I add fake)
breasts every few minutes or the audience was going to lose interest in the
film. The metal soundtrack seems to attempt the same distracting job, as it
appears during otherwise lackluster fight scenes.

This Blu-ray is a fine edition of the film. The transfer does a decent job
with the material. Some of the darker scenes show a bit of noise, and the image
doesn't "pop" like it could, but it's certainly watchable. The audio
does a similarly decent job, with good dynamics on everything from the music to
the fight sounds. The extras are slight but appropriate. We get a standard
behind-the-scenes video, interviews with the principals, a featurette on
training in Hawaii, and a host of previews for other TapouT sponsored
products.

Death Warrior proves once and for all that good fighters do not make
a good fight film. The irrational plot, poor characterization, and empty fight
scenes all combine to kill the potential of Death Warrior. For die-hard
MMA fans this is a decent little Blu-ray release that includes some interviews
fans will likely appreciate, but a rental is all I can recommend.